Harvey
by ShadoutCarver
Summary: Summary: Murphy needs help on a case, and teams up with Bob. Sequel to my story “I want the truth” SPOILER: If you haven't seen The Dresden Files episode What About Bob then DO NOT READ THIS


Title: Harvey

TV 'Verse  
Disclaimer: Dresden Files belongs to Jim Butcher  
and Scifi Channel who threw it away anyway so :p  
Summary: Murphy needs help on a case, and teams up with Bob.

Warning: Sequel to my story "I want the truth" if you haven't read it parts of this one might not make much sense. SPOILER: If you haven't seen The Dresden Files episode What About Bob then DO NOT READ THIS STORY. You are forbidden past this point!

-.-.-.--.-.-

I knocked on Harry Dresden's office door before I barged in. For some strange reason Harry never invites me in anymore, so I simply go in.

He looked harried. So to speak.

"Hi Murph, whats up?" he asked me.

"I got a case, I need help." I replied.

He gave me a pained look.

"How urgent is it? I'm still working on that extortion case you hired me for."

"I don't need you, Harry, I need your ghost." He looked startled. He knew I had briefly 'owned' the skull of Hrothbert of Bainbridge while Harry had been missing and badly injured, but he always seemed surprised when I mentioned the ghost or the skull.

"ROBERT" I called "ARE YOU HERE?"

Dancing lights and smoke emerged enthusiastically from the decorated skull sitting on Harry's desk. They coalesced into the form of Hrothbert of Bainbridge, who bowed and grinned at me.

"At your service, Lieutenant Murphy. How may I be of assistance?"

"I need your help identifying two bodies. They were burned beyond recognition. Dental records are no help."

The two men frowned.

"They're children."

Harry said nothing, he simply picked up the old skull and handed it to me.

"Will you help me, Robert?" I asked.

"Of course." He responded before he dissolved into a solemn mass of smoke and lights and disappeared into the skull. I put him into the bag Harry handed me.

"Go ahead and keep working on the other case." I told Harry. "I'll call if I need anything.

He nodded.

"And Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks"

"No problem. Take care of him."

-.-.-

I left with my strange assistant and drove to the morgue.

It took a bit of doing but I managed to shoo Butters and his lab techs from the room. The two horribly small bodies lay on two tables. They were hideously burned. I had trouble looking at them.

I put the skull on a cart near the tables and called Robert out.

He emerged but turned pale as he looked around. He looked panicked.

"I can't." he whispered and disappeared back into his skull.

What the hell?

"I don't have time for this. Get back out here and find out what you can about these kids. Now."

He emerged, he was white as... well...a ghost. He went straight to the first body and put his hand inside. I could barely watch. He suddenly shrank, taking the form of a young boy. The child looked at me. I took a photograph. The boy became Robert again and moved to the other body. A girl this time. I took another picture.

"What can you tell me?"

"Connie, please!" he looked at me, beseeching. He was extremely uncomfortable in this room for some reason. I didn't think it was the bodies. I nodded to the skull.

"Come on, lets get out of here, you can tell me what you found out."

He dissolved into his skull faster than I'd ever seen him.

I returned to my car and put the skull under the dashboard of the passenger seat, where I usually put it. I called him out and he appeared in the passenger seat. He would not look at me.

"Neither child was raped," he began immediately, "but they were both tortured. They were beaten and cut. I believe they were also burned by acid. They were dead when their bodies were burned."

I cursed. Butters had been able to tell me some of this, but he wasn't sure.

The phone rang. It was Kirmani. Another child was missing. I cursed again.

"I'll be there in ten." I hung up. Robert looked at me questioningly.

"Another one. I'm sorry, but I have to get to the crime scene. You don't mind coming along?"

"Of course not. I should remain in my skull until you clear the crime scene. People shouldn't see me if it can be avoided."

"Can you tell me what happened back there?" I asked. He looked away from me. "Never mind, we're almost there, you better disappear." He did.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Kirmani met me as I parked as close as I could to the address he'd given me. The child had disappeared from principal's office at the school, where she had been left for five minutes. Kirmani showed me into the office. The window had been broken. Despite the noise that must have been made, no one had heard or seen anything. I asked everyone to clear the room and put the skull down on the floor.

"The coast is clear, you can come out."

Robert emerged, looking around curiously.

"How on earth does a school loose someone from the principal's office?" he demanded.

"I was hoping you can tell me."

He began to walk the room, putting his hand through things. The desk, the chairs, the windowsill, the broken glass. He changed suddenly. A rather handsome man in his thirties was standing in his place. I shot a couple pictures. He changed back.

"Take one of these. He said, his hand on the glass along the windowsill." I moved closer and saw a few threads.

"I can't, this is evidence, I need to call the crime scene guys back."

"Just take one, Connie, put it in a plastic bag if you have one or wrap in in a tissue. Harry can use it to track the man... or the child."

I carefully took one of the threads and slipped it into one of the plastic baggies I usually carry. I had just put it into my pocket when Kirmani burst in.

"Who the hell is this, boss?"he demanded, looking at Robert.

The two men stared at each other.

"A friend of Dresden's." I told him.

"Oh great. And is this one as weird as Dresden?"

"Oh, you have no idea." Robert grinned ferally at Kirmani.

"Thats enough, both of you. I'll see you back at the office, Kirmani, I want you to keep on the lab results for anything they found here." He nodded and left. Thank heaven he hadn't seen the skull at my feet.

I glared at Robert "How can a ghost get into a pissing contest?" He gave me a rakish smirk

"Come on. Lets get back to Dresden's office and see what he can do with this." I picked the skull up and heard rather than saw him disappear.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Fortunately, Dresden was home. I handed him the thread and he vanished into the hallway.

He returned fifteen minutes later with a crystal on a string.

"You've got to be joking, Harry, crystals now?"

"Just get in the jeep."

I got in the jeep, still carrying the bag with Robert.

Harry tied the crystal from the rear view mirror and began driving through the city willy nilly.

After seemingly driving in circles he pulled up outside a rundown office building.

"It's here" he said.

A van pulled out from the side of the building and took off at high speed.

"Damn. It's there too."

I jumped out of the jeep. "Follow him." I said. Dresden took off. I called Kirmani and gave him the license and description of the van and the address of the building.

"I'm going in" I said and hung up on his protests.

"Connie, please don't. Not alone." A quiet voice from behind me. I hadn't heard him leave the skull.

"I'm not alone, you're with me." I responded. "We've been through this before. The kid might be alive and I'm going in there. I need your help."

He smiled reluctantly.

"I will do what I can, my lady." he said.

We entered the building together. The electricity seemed to be out. The hall was dark and none too clean. All the doors were closed and apparently locked. I looked at Robert. "Can you slip in through the doors and check things out?" He disappeared through the first door. He returned shortly, shaking his head.

We went down the hall this way, I stood with my weapon drawn as the ghost slipped into each room through the locked door. At the seventh room he didn't come back. I waited. I called out. He stuck his head out the door.

"I've found her, she doesn't want me to leave her. She's afraid." and he vanished.

I shot out the lock, opened the door and went in. I saw a six foot rabbit standing beside a girl who was chained to a pole and sitting on a barrel. Her mouth was duct taped shut but she was giggling and staring at the rabbit.

"Good job, Harvey." I said. I knelt down behind the girl and started working to release her.

The six foot rabbit turned back into Robert, who smiled at the girl and said "See, you will be out of here soon."

"What the hell?" a loud voice interrupted us. It was the man Robert had shown me in the principal's office. He was holding a shotgun.

The young girl whined and wriggled, panicked. Robert moved fast, standing in between us and the kidnapper. He raised his arms and, in a flawless southern American accent, began to beg "Please no, don't shoot. I thought I heard something and came in." he was trying to hide me, and give me time.

I did not waste the distraction. I drew my own weapon and aimed carefully. I emptied the clip – right through Robert.

I heard a thump.

He whirled and grinned at me.

"Good shot, Connie."

I grinned back. We both turned back to the child. I removed her gag then set to work on the chains. The handcuffs were the easiest. The rest took some tinkering with my burglar tools.

Robert kept the girl distracted.

"What is your name?"

"Tina."

"You're going to be fine, Tina. You will be able to see your parents soon. First there will be police, and an ambulance. They are all going to want to talk to you." Robert said as he knelt close to the child. She looked at him wide eyed.

"We need to protect you." he continued, "I want you to do something for me. It's something wrong, but I think it will be better for you and for me if you lie a little to everybody." He looked solemnly at Tina as he continued. "You can tell everybody you saw me. You can tell them what I did and what I said but not what I am saying now. I want you to tell them you are the only one who could see me. I want you to say that the bad man couldn't see me. I want you to tell them that Detective Murphy here could not see me. Can you do that?" he asked her.

She looked at him puzzled. "Why?" she asked.

"Because, child, that way everyone will think I am imaginary, and that you saw me because you were afraid, and I helped you not be afraid anymore. If you tell them I am a real ghost, and that the bad man saw me and Detective Murphy saw me, then they will worry and think something is wrong with you. They won't believe you; but if you tell them no one else could see me they will believe you."

She looked thoughtful. "Ok." she said. "It's a secret, right? That you're a real ghost?"

Robert smiled at the child. "Yes. Just so."

"I promise to keep your secret, Mr. Ghost. Thank you for helping me. I like your rabbit."

Robert's rich laugh echoed through the room as Kirmani burst in followed by uniformed police. None of them noticed the smoke disappearing into my bag.

Kirmani told me the van Harry had been following was indeed the kidnappers van, but Harry had been following a car thief. When Harry and two cruisers caught up with it the teenager inside got the shock of his young life when he was arrested for kidnapping, torturing, and murdering young children. He was eventually cleared of all but auto theft charges, much to his relief.

I left my gun with Kirmani, asked him to deal with the parents and I left the swarming army of police and emergency personnel. I hitched a ride with uniformed officer in a cruiser. She dropped me off at my car near Dresden's office.

-.-.-.-

I got into my car and sat quietly for a minute.

"Robert?"

He was sitting next to me in the passenger seat.

"Yes?"

"I don't own the skull anymore. Right? That curse thing, the manacles. They don't make you do what I say, right?"

"That's right, Connie."

"So, in the morgue..."

He looked down.

"You cannot compel me with a command anymore."

I waited.

"When Harry was missing, I chose you. I never had the luxury of choosing who possessed the skull before. I ... never regretted that choice. You are no longer able to compel me through the curse, my lady, but as long as you live, if you ever want or need anything that is within my power, you need only ask."

I looked at him.

"The morgue. What upset you? If you don't mind, I'd like to know why it hurt you so much."

He was silent for a moment. His eyes met mine, green and bright with unformed tears.

"I was alive."

"What?"

"I was alive. Justin Morningway used black magic to ensure his resurrection. His death activated a double – a doppleganger programmed to make me mortal so I could bring Justin back to mortality by draining Harry's life. It was in that room. I was mortal. I was able to touch, to feel, to channel magic again. I used it to nearly kill Harry. He thought I had betrayed him."

Robert stopped. His face tight he fought to control his voice.

"It was the only way." he whispered.

"Only way for what?" I asked.

"The only way to destroy that monster forever. To completely erase him from the mortal world and eliminate any possibility of his return. I took Harry to the edge of death before I killed Justin Morningway for good. I poured every ounce of energy in me through him to Harry, then blew Justin to atoms."

I stared at him in horror. I remembered the Morningway case, I had doubted Harry and accused him. "My Gd, you... you killed yourself to do it? You could have been mortal..."

"The price was too high."

"You never even considered it did you?"

His expression changed then to one of infinite sadness.

"Yes, Connie, I did. That is why it hurt so much to be in that room."

He slowly dissolved and vanished.

"Oh, Robert." I sighed and wiped my eyes on my coat sleeve.


End file.
